


Until the End of Time - The Behind the Scenes Remix

by allaire mikháil (allaire)



Series: Marks [4]
Category: Babylon 5
Genre: "Shadows Past and Present" is canon, "The Price of Peace" is canon, "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" is canon, Babylon 5 (1995) comics are canon, M/M, select Babylon 5 novels are canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-06-07 18:33:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19474927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allaire/pseuds/allaire%20mikh%C3%A1il
Summary: "I like the freedom of being suspended between two places, all anxieties of purpose taken care of: for this moment I know where I am going.”~ Anna Funder,StasilandMichael Garibaldi wakes up after being shot in the back, and nothing is the same anymore.





	1. ...and not to yield

He awoke to hissing, beeping sounds and a particular smell that said 'medlab' to him long before he managed to open his eyes. The doc was there and was linking for Susan before Garibaldi had managed to gather his thoughts.

He fell back asleep before Susan made it to medlab.

He'd just blinked his eyes open again, the urgency that had driven him to crawl the interminable hallway towards the transport tube still in his blood, when everything he knew was turned on its head. President Santiago was dead. Jeff had been reassigned. Replaced.

He asked Lou to bring Talia. He couldn't bear not knowing exactly what had happened to him.

Passing the time until then made him jittery, nauseous. Lying still hurt. Moving, even talking, hurt even more.

Dammit, he wanted _Jeff_ , wanted to hear the familiar deep voice, see the smile in his amber eyes.

He came close to chasing away Lieutenant Cortana who peeked in before the second shift began on C&C, then two of his guys who hemmed and hawed before earnestly _apologizing_ for not having found yet whoever'd attacked him. He had to talk longer that he felt ready for in order to reassure them and fell into a pain-filled doze after they left.

Damn Franklin for being so stingy with the slappers, all because the doc was worried how pain medication might interact with the effectiveness of the healing device! 

He refused to think of the other reason and the entry in his medical file that Franklin had to be aware of; the one that recommended refraining from treating him with all opioid-based painkillers as well as many of the commonly used synthetic analgesics.

He felt woozy and like he was drifting, cradled safely in a warm, familiar embrace when he next awoke. There was someone talking, no, _reading_ to him and for a minute he was _convinced_ it was Jeff.

> "--The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep  
>  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,  
>  'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

"This is rather hard to read with its many ''hath' and 'ere's," Londo's voice complained. "But your poet knew what he was talking about... ancient kings, suffering and long journeys coming to an end." 

"Tennyson?" Garibaldi rasped. "Where in the universe did you get this?" He gestured at the small volume of poetry open in Londo's hand. He knew the book, knew its faded, dark blue binding. 

"Where do you think, Mr. Garibaldi? I promised to read this in the place of a friend." 

The Centauri ambassador almost dropped the book and a strange, antique-looking amulet he had in his hand when Garibaldi broke down into tearing sobs he didn't even try to suppress. 

_Jeff? What has happened? Why is nothing the same anymore?_


	2. From a Distance

The door slid closed behind him and Garibaldi breathed a sigh of relief to be back in his quarters. The last two days in medlab had really eroded his patience. He understood Dr. Franklin's need to keep him under medical surveillance, considering how little they knew about Dr. Rosen's alien healing device. _He did._

But after everything that had happened?

Garibaldi remembered dragging himself across the floor in Downbelow after being shot. Inch after inch, each one agony. Reaching the transport tube, making it inside. Blacking out at the unbearable pain of his badly burned back impacting with the floor inside. Then, coming to in medlab, feeling like he was suffocating. Everything a blur until Jeff. Hard forearm under his desperately grasping fingers. Gasping out a message. Had to deliver a better warning than Petrov. Had to prevent the assassination.

He'd failed.

Now, a little over two weeks after that disastrous New Year's Eve, he was back on his feet. Weak and shaky as hell, unable to walk without a cane, but well enough to be discharged. He felt as though he'd woken in a parallel universe, though.

They'd caught Jack Benedict. The bastard had refused to talk, of course, and then he'd been made to disappear. Right under their noses. And Deveraux and his men were dead.

Sinclair had received orders to take a transport to Earth and hadn't been heard from since. Instead, Captain John Sheridan had been transferred out of the EAS _Agamemnon_ in order to take over command of Babylon 5. From what Susan had said, the brass had made it sound as though the change in command was permanent.

There had to be a reason for all of it. After the events of the last year, Garibaldi couldn't help but subliminally fear that all the adversity and distrust Sinclair had encountered from EarthGov had finally culminated in a successful attempt to have him replaced. No-one had believed him that he hadn't remembered what had happened during the 24 hours of time he'd ended up missing at the Line, that he hadn't turned traitor.

Immediately after the War, Sinclair had been celebrated as a hero. It turned Garibaldi's stomach how quickly opinion in EathGov had shifted, and without _a single shred of proof_ due to envy, suspicion and xenophobia.

None of them knew the man. Jeff, a traitor? Not in a million years. Sinclair lived and breathed Earthforce.

"Computer, search ISN news archive." He had to find out whether there had been anything on the news about Sinclair other than malicious rumors.

"Specify search terms." He hated the UI's female voice. It always sounded so smug and conceited. "You have four new vid messages left on January 6th 00:16, January 6th 02:32, January 11th 19:10 and January 15th 20:53 Earth Standard Time."

Everyone on the station knew he'd been out of commission. It would have made no sense for anyone to call.

"Play in sequence."

He had to sit down, hard, when Sinclair's face filled his screen. The commander looked exhausted and as though he was at the end of his rope. "Hello, Mike."


	3. Surrender

Garibaldi was on the third replay of Jeff's final message, studying the well-known face with desperate intensity for a hint, a clue, _anything_ that would make sense of the last couple of days when he shifted in his seat more than he should have. Aside from the flash of pain that flared along his nerves and made his chest feel tight, he also couldn't deny any longer that he was hard.

He stared down at his lap in dismay.

 _Great timing, Mike,_ he thought. 

Suddenly he felt like crying. Didn't even try to prevent the two hard, dry sobs from escaping. Jeff was parsecs away. They might not see each other again for a long, _long_ time ( _if at all,_ an insidious voice whispered in the back of his mind that he refused to listen to). Jeff had damned fucking hell _proposed to Catherine Sakai_. Whatever illusions part of him had clung to, fate had taken Jeff out of his reach. For good.

"I never really believed he was for me," he whispered furiously into the quiet of his quarters. "But it was a nice dream while it lasted."

Jeff's first message queued up again. Garibaldi stared at the exhausted, frustrated slant of his mouth, at the dark, shadowed eyes, and knew exactly what he would have done to cheer him up if this had been a regular day on Babylon 5. Joke with Jeff, tease him, let him rant, prevent him from brooding. Distract him.

All the while suppressing his own attraction, denying that there was an underlying emotion at play other than friendship.

The Jeff on screen smiled, repeated his greeting.

Garibaldi thought, "Fuck it." In the past, he'd refused to give in, to fantasize. It would have felt like encroaching on a friendship that had, at times, been the only thing that had kept him sober, kept him sane, kept him going. But now - now there was nothing left to lose. Nothing that mattered.

He opened the zipper of his pants with harsh, jerky motions. Dragged out his cock that hadn't softened in the slightest. Deciding to jerk off was half punishment, half a surrender to the feelings that crowded his chest, stuck in his throat, made his eyes wet. At first, he touched himself without any tenderness, just wanted to get it over with. But midway through, something changed.

His mind wandered. Jeff's voice made it seem as though he was _here_ with Garibaldi. Suddenly it was Jeff's hand on his rigid flesh. He licked his hand, resumed his stroking, touched the slit with a careful finger. Shuddered in reaction. Imagined a shoulder next to his, a hard, darkly haired forearm keeping him in place. Warm breath in his ear. A familiar scent. That well-known baritone whispering his name.

He didn't hear himself pant, groan, whimper a name. Didn't feel the pull of his injury.

Just - surrendered to the dream as he spilled warm wetness all over his hand, his pants.

Uttered a harsh, "Computer, fade." that cut off virtual Sinclair mid-word afterwards and remained sitting in the semi-darkness of his quarters that felt cold and lonely while the sticky mess in his lap cooled and became disgusting.

Felt like a drink.

Didn't give in. Just - _didn't_.


	4. Peeling back the Layers

A day later, Garibaldi was still feeling at sea. He couldn't imagine going back to work. Sinclair had called while being en-route to Minbar.

Ordinarily, that would have been a relief. Direct, face-to-face contact for the first time since Garibaldi had uttered his warning before falling unconscious and sleeping through the shitload of changes that had rendered Babylon 5 almost unrecognizable.

But Jeff had used one of their new code words, right in the greeting. “'Old warhorse', my ass,” Garibaldi muttered rebelliously. “Who did you believe was listening in on us, Jeff? Earthforce? The Minbari? Psi Corps? Someone else?”

Despite the warning, Garibaldi was still feeling hurt whenever he thought back to the tone of the call. What a kick in the teeth it had been to have a distant, polite, superficial conversation with his best friend who'd acted like a stranger. Full of talk about 'favors' (hah!), the situation on Minbar and the changes in Delenn.

How much of the information relayed had been true and how much a fabrication for the benefit of their unseen listeners?

He deemed it likely that Jeff's summary of the events on Minbar was factual. Supposedly, the Minbari Grey Council had finally agreed to pick a leader, now that the mourning period for Dukhat was over, and bestow on them the catchy title of 'The Chosen One'. They'd decided on one of the representatives of the religious caste by the name of Jenimer. The guy would be sworn in – or some version thereof – on Minbar, and Jeff had been invited to attend the ceremony.

Garibaldi would have bet good credits that Delenn's departure from the station had been for the same reason.

He longed to talk freely to Jeff.

That reminded him.

He was finally feeling maudlin enough for it. “Computer, security code alpha-zero-eight-uniform-lima-three-five, Garibaldi, Michael Alfredo." 

“Voice print and retinal pattern recognized.”

“Provide video files of Medlab Three, January 3st 2259, 00:00 to 24:00, and display them on-screen,” he ordered.

The security camera video library for the ICU medlab opened on his viewer. His finger only trembled a little before he decisively pressed the first likely icon for the footage he was seeking.

He was in luck; he'd fortuitously chosen a moment in which an agitated Jeff was pacing to and fro beside a bed occupied by his own unconscious self. He didn't look good, Garibaldi decided judiciously, and stared at his own slack features and the medical equipment surrounding him. Pale, thin. Weak.

Jeff didn't look much better, though. Underneath the hectic flush on his face, Garibaldi thought he saw several layers he'd become familiar with over the intervening years and mentally peeled them all back. Strain. Anger. Cold determination. Desperation. And underneath them all...

That one he hadn't seen before. Or had he?

The Jeff on-screen had stopped pacing, was now leaning over Garibaldi's still body in the bed and trying to smile. His confession that he was rethinking his decision to marry Catherine left Garibaldi reeling. He'd been hoping for a declaration of friendship, of care, of regret for leaving. Something to hold onto. Never in a million years would he have expected _this_.

Then: The kiss.

He thought he was having a heart attack. His wild, joyous laughter rang through the room.

And he was suddenly, blindingly jealous of his past self who'd had the poor taste to _be unconscious for it, dammit_.


End file.
